Film Noir and Neo-Noir in the Theaters

In what is undoubtedly the biggest noir cinema event this month, New York’s Film Forum presents The French Crime Wave from August 8 through September 11, a diverse and comprehensive five-week overview of French film noirs and neo-noirs made between 1937 and 2000. Go here for details and (hopefully soon!) a full schedule.

The French Embassy’s website provides the following info: "This festival of 39 prime examples opens with the late expat Jules Dassin’s classic heist picture Rififi, which kick-started a whole new cycle of French noir, and includes both classics and rarities by such masters of the genre as

Jean-Pierre Melville (Bob Le Flambeur, Le Cercle Rouge, Un flic), Jacques Becker (Touchez Pas Au Grisbi), Henri-Georges Clouzot (Diabolique, Wages of Fear), Georges Franju (Eyes Without a Face), Rene Clement (Purple Noon), Louis Malle (Elevator to the Gallows), Claude Chabrol (La Ceremonie), and Francois Truffaut (Mississippi Mermaid, The Bride Wore Black). Among the many stars showcased are the five great hommes durs (tough guys) of the genre — Jean Gabin, Lino Ventura, Yves Montand, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Alain Delon — and such femmes fatales as Simone Signoret, Jeanne Moreau, Catherine Deneuve, and Brigitte Bardot. The festival concludes with a one-week run of Truffaut’s Shoot the Piano Player."

Heavy Weather Ahead

It’s time again for Seattleites to buy their tickets for a one way ride to desperation and despair. Series passes for the Seattle Art Museum’s annual fall noir series, this year entitled Night Wind: The Film Noir Cycle, go on sale August 19th. The series screens at 7:30 every Thursday night, October 2nd through December 4th.

Don't get stranded on the side of the road, going nowhere, pick up your full series pass by either emailing or calling the SAM Box Office at 206.654.3121. Single-film tickets are sold day of show at the auditorium (cash only). Be warned, if you want to try to get in the day of show, go early—this series sells out faster then a double-crossing dame. Tickets are also available through Scarecrow Video 206.524.8554. Here’s the full line-up:

Oct 02 STORM WARNING

Oct 09 HIGHWAY 301

Oct 16 TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY

Oct 23 JOHNNY O'CLOCK

Oct 30 PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET

Nov 06 THE MAN BETWEEN

Nov 13 WICKED WOMAN

Nov 20 BLACK WIDOW

Dec 04 THE NIGHT HOLDS TERROR

Dec 11 A KISS BEFORE DYING

Tribute to a Forgotten Legend

The Pacific Film Archive, in Berkley, CA, will screen the film series Streets of No Return: The Dark Cinema of David Goodis August 1st through August 23rd. This series of films features screenplays written by, or adapted from stories by, David Goodis, ranging from classic Hollywood film noirs to French New Wave landmarks. Goodis wrote extensively for a variety of pulp magazines during the 1930s and 1940s. Great opportunity came with the serialization in The Saturday Evening Post of his novel Dark Passage, which Warner Bros. turned into a film starring Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart. Unfortunately, his alcoholism prevented him from parlaying his hit into further success. He died in 1967 from cirrhosis of the liver. The FNF’s own Eddie Muller hosted the August 7 screenings of Nightfall and The Burglar. Complete schedule here.

Nicholas Kazan in Person. Kazan and Steven Soderbergh directed two totally different TV takes on the same Goodis story.

Jean-Louis Trintignant and Robert Ryan in René Clément’s study of pent-up rivalries in a claustrophobic gangland hideout.

Introduced by Elliot Lavine. Jean-Jacques Beineix evokes Goodis’s murky and haunted world with sinister artifice. Starring Gérard Depardieu and Nastassia Kinski. This promises to be a fascinating look at one man’s writing through a wide variety of lenses.

Noir Art

Artist Wim Griffith shows Wim Noir-Men in Suits, his series of paintings inspired by film noir and its often homoerotic underpinnings, at at Flazh! Alley Studio in San Pedro, California, July 28 through September 6. It will be open to the public from 7-11 p.m. on San Pedro’s First Thursdays Art Walk Nights on August 7 and September 4, and by appointment. 18 and over only.

Keep us posted on noir news and events in your area! Email Anne Hockens, Film Noir Foundation news and events editor.


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FNF NEWS • FILM NOIR AND NEO-NOIR IN THE THEATERS • UPCOMING ON DVD • FILM NOIR AND NEO-NOIR ON TV

	FILM NOIR AND NEO NOIR IN THE THEATERS
	When Serie Noire Meets Film Noir In what is undoubtedly the biggest noir cinema event this month, New York’s Film Forum presents The French Crime Wave from August 8 through September 11, a diverse and comprehensive five-week overview of French film noirs and neo-noirs made between 1937 and 2000. Go here for details and (hopefully soon!) a full schedule. The French Embassy’s website provides the following info: "This festival of 39 prime examples opens with the late expat Jules Dassin’s classic heist picture Rififi, which kick-started a whole new cycle of French noir, and includes both classics and rarities by such masters of the genre as Jean-Pierre Melville (Bob Le Flambeur, Le Cercle Rouge, Un flic), Jacques Becker (Touchez Pas Au Grisbi), Henri-Georges Clouzot (Diabolique, Wages of Fear), Georges Franju (Eyes Without a Face), Rene Clement (Purple Noon), Louis Malle (Elevator to the Gallows), Claude Chabrol (La Ceremonie), and Francois Truffaut (Mississippi Mermaid, The Bride Wore Black). Among the many stars showcased are the five great hommes durs (tough guys) of the genre — Jean Gabin, Lino Ventura, Yves Montand, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Alain Delon — and such femmes fatales as Simone Signoret, Jeanne Moreau, Catherine Deneuve, and Brigitte Bardot. The festival concludes with a one-week run of Truffaut’s Shoot the Piano Player." Heavy Weather Ahead It’s time again for Seattleites to buy their tickets for a one way ride to desperation and despair. Series passes for the Seattle Art Museum’s annual fall noir series, this year entitled Night Wind: The Film Noir Cycle, go on sale August 19th. The series screens at 7:30 every Thursday night, October 2nd through December 4th. Don't get stranded on the side of the road, going nowhere, pick up your full series pass by either emailing or calling the SAM Box Office at 206.654.3121. Single-film tickets are sold day of show at the auditorium (cash only). Be warned, if you want to try to get in the day of show, go early—this series sells out faster then a double-crossing dame. Tickets are also available through Scarecrow Video 206.524.8554. Here’s the full line-up: Oct 02 STORM WARNING Oct 09 HIGHWAY 301 Oct 16 TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY Oct 23 JOHNNY O'CLOCK Oct 30 PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET Nov 06 THE MAN BETWEEN Nov 13 WICKED WOMAN Nov 20 BLACK WIDOW Dec 04 THE NIGHT HOLDS TERROR Dec 11 A KISS BEFORE DYING Tribute to a Forgotten Legend The Pacific Film Archive, in Berkley, CA, will screen the film series Streets of No Return: The Dark Cinema of David Goodis August 1st through August 23rd. This series of films features screenplays written by, or adapted from stories by, David Goodis, ranging from classic Hollywood film noirs to French New Wave landmarks. Goodis wrote extensively for a variety of pulp magazines during the 1930s and 1940s. Great opportunity came with the serialization in The Saturday Evening Post of his novel Dark Passage, which Warner Bros. turned into a film starring Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart. Unfortunately, his alcoholism prevented him from parlaying his hit into further success. He died in 1967 from cirrhosis of the liver. The FNF’s own Eddie Muller hosted the August 7 screenings of Nightfall and The Burglar. Complete schedule here. Remaining shows in August: Thursday, August 21, 2008 6:30 pm The Professional Man x Two Nicholas Kazan in Person. Kazan and Steven Soderbergh directed two totally different TV takes on the same Goodis story. Thursday, August 21, 2008 8:30 pm And Hope to Die Jean-Louis Trintignant and Robert Ryan in René Clément’s study of pent-up rivalries in a claustrophobic gangland hideout. Saturday, August 23, 2008 6:30 pm Moon in the Gutter Introduced by Elliot Lavine. Jean-Jacques Beineix evokes Goodis’s murky and haunted world with sinister artifice. Starring Gérard Depardieu and Nastassia Kinski. This promises to be a fascinating look at one man’s writing through a wide variety of lenses. Noir Art Artist Wim Griffith shows Wim Noir-Men in Suits, his series of paintings inspired by film noir and its often homoerotic underpinnings, at at Flazh! Alley Studio in San Pedro, California, July 28 through September 6. It will be open to the public from 7-11 p.m. on San Pedro’s First Thursdays Art Walk Nights on August 7 and September 4, and by appointment. 18 and over only. Keep us posted on noir news and events in your area! Email Anne Hockens, Film Noir Foundation news and events editor.	In Other Film News In July and August, the Museum of Modern Art in New York celebrates jazz composed specifically for the cinema in its film series Jazz Score and related exhibitions. Screenings include episodes of the television noirs Peter Gunn (1959) and Staccato (1959) as well as several theatrical film noirs and neo-noirs. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s August screenings include The Pushover (1954) and Drive a Crooked Road (1954) as part of its tribute series to Richard Quine’s work at Columbia. The Lawrence, Kansas Downtown Film Festival, is screening one film noir every two weeks every two weeks this summer, through August 21. Among the noir-influenced films in wide release this summer is the French thriller Tell No One, which details a man’s desperate search for his wife, presumably murdered eight years earlier, after a mysterious email leads him to security camera footage of her. The film’s debt to noir is apparent in its use of flashbacks, the obfuscated depiction of the wife, and the convoluted plot. See it at Landmark Theatres or your local independent cinema. The second film with a strong noir influence, truly playing in theatres everywhere, is Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. This latest take on Batman presents a morally equivocal hero pitted against a truly psychotic villain in the Dan Duryea or Richard Widmark vein, the Joker. Oscar buzz currently surrounds Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker. If you can’t find where it’s playing on your own, which is fairly unlikely, go here. The current issue of The Noir City Sentinel, the Film Noir Foundation’s newsletter, features an in-depth review of this superhero noir. To receive The Sentinel, all you need to do is sign up for the Foundation mailing list, make a nominal donation to the FNF in any amount. To view a sample page from the April 2007 issue, go here. Upcoming on DVD Fox’s ninth wave of film noir DVDs, Boomerang!, Moontide, and Road House, will be released on September 2. Boomerang! (1947), directed by Eliza Kazan, stars Dana Andrews as a states attorney defending an out-of-towner accused of murdering a priest. The DVD features audio commentary by noted film noir historians Alain Silver and James Ursini. In Archie Mayo’s Moontide (1942), a fisherman named Bobo (Jean Gabin) wakes up after a binge fearing he may have killed a man. When he goes into hiding, he takes Anna (Ida Lupino) with him, sparking a dangerous jealousy in his friend Tiny. This DVD includes audio commentary by Foster Hirsch (author of The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir) and a making-of feature, “Turning of the Tide: The Ill-Starred Making of Moontide.” Jean Negulesco’s Road House (1948) stars Ida Lupino as a nightclub singer hired by small-town bigwig Richard Widmark to play at the bar in his bowling alley. He’s obsessed with her, but she only has eyes for his best friend (Cornel Wilde). Trouble ensues. This DVD includes audio commentary by film historians Kim Morgan and the FNF’s own Eddie Muller plus the documentary “Killer Instincts: Richard Widmark and Ida Lupino at Twentieth Century-Fox.” Rene Clement’s Joy House (1964) arrives on DVD August 5 from Koch Lorber Films. This combination potboiler / film noir tells the tale of a small-time con man (Alain Delon) on the run from the gangster husband of his girlfriend, who hides out in a gothic mansion inhabited by two mysterious women (Jane Fonda and Lola Albright). One tries to seduce him while the other tries to poison him. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s critically acclaimed Brit noir The Small Black Room (1949) makes its DVD debut on August 19. It chronicles a bomb-disposal expert’s simultaneous struggles with alcohol, a troubled romantic relationship, and a new secret weapon during the London World War II bombings. As usual, Criterion has created a newly restored high-def digital transfer. The special features include an audio commentary by the film scholar Charles Barr and a video interview with the cinematographer Christopher Challis. Quite a bit of television noir makes its way to DVD in August. HBO releases the fifth season of the extremely gritty and intelligent Baltimore police drama The Wire on August 12, and Showtime releases the second season of Dexter on August 19. Dexter is by day a blood-splatter specialist working for the Miami police department, and by night a vigilante serial killer whose victims are fellow serial killers just out of the law’s reach. Columbia Tristar releases the sixth season of its bleak police procedural The Shield on August 26, the same day that Paramount releases volume two of season two of the classic TV series The Untouchables. The Untouchables, starring Robert Stack, chronicles the efforts of Elliot Ness and his team to destroy Al Capone’s bootlegging empire. Huge news for film noir and James Ellroy fans! On September 23 Warner Home Video will release both a digitally remastered DVD two-disc special edition and a single-disc Blu-ray high-def version of Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential (1997), starring Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, and Kim Basinger. This exceptional neo-noir won two Oscars and was nominated for another five, and it is certainly deserving of this sort of star treatment. On October 8th, Universal will release a two disc DVD set of Orson Welles' Touch of Evil that includes all three versions of the film: the preview, the theatrical and the restored. This anamorphic edition will include a copy of Welles' legendary fifty-eight page memo to Universal's head of production detailing his vision of how the film should be edited. Welles wrote the memo after watching the version that the studios wanted to, and did, release. In 1998, editor Walter Murch, using the memo for his guide, re-edited the film to realize Welles' version. This stylish and convoluted noir unwinds the story of a crooked police chief, Orson Welles, who attempts to frame an innocent man to protect his own criminal interests. Charlton Heston portrays an earnest lawyer trying to stop him inadvertently putting his bride, Janet Leigh, in great danger.

	*Header photo by David M. Allen